A1200 hard drive installation

[swoslover]

Hi

I recently acquired an A1200 with a 2.5" hdd.

I have never before used a hard drive with an Amiga so apologies for a question that has probably been asked repeatedly.

I am using Workbench 3.0 and wondered how I format the drive, I cant seem to find any obvious way to do it.

I have tried searching but always come up with answers for 3.1

Even a link to guide would be fantastic.

Thanks

[Khephren]

Hi Swoslover, Hardrive toolbox should be on your workbench install disk, that should do the job.

[swoslover]

Hi Swoslover, Hardrive toolbox should be on your workbench install disk, that should do the job.

Is it on the Workbench 3.0 disk?

I am sure I have looked through everything and cant find it

Where is it located?  thank you

[Khephren]

You should have six disks in a WB 3.0 distribution:

Install Disk  (this has Hard drive toolbox)
Amiga Workbench
Amiga Extras
Locale
Storage
Fonts

[Daedalus]

If that particular A1200 was originally sold without a hard drive, it won't have had the Install disk included in the Workbench pack that came with it, and that's where the HDToolbox program is stored. Has the drive been used in an Amiga before? If it has, and it still has the partitions, you should just be able to format them as you would a floppy. But if not, you'll need HDToolbox or a similar application.

HDInst.lha on Aminet will help, if you can get it onto the Amiga via floppy or something - it'll do a similar job to HDToolbox. Once you partition the hard drive with one of those tools, you can format them normally when you boot from the Workbench disk, then copy all the files from your Workbench disks over to it and that should be enough.

[swoslover]

If that particular A1200 was originally sold without a hard drive, it won't have had the Install disk included in the Workbench pack that came with it, and that's where the HDToolbox program is stored. Has the drive been used in an Amiga before? If it has, and it still has the partitions, you should just be able to format them as you would a floppy. But if not, you'll need HDToolbox or a similar application.

HDInst.lha on Aminet will help, if you can get it onto the Amiga via floppy or something - it'll do a similar job to HDToolbox. Once you partition the hard drive with one of those tools, you can format them normally when you boot from the Workbench disk, then copy all the files from your Workbench disks over to it and that should be enough.

I dont have the install disk.  That's where i was going wrong.

I assume the HD is blank or from an old PC as was told would have to format it before use.

[Daedalus]

Okay, so do you know what size the hard drive is? Because without extra faffing about with patches, OS 3 only supports up to 4GB. It will allow you to install more than that, but once you use any part of the drive over the 4GB mark it'll destroy data on it. But that's for another day. If you have no other way of getting things onto it, you'll at least need PC with a floppy drive to get the files onto a 720KB formatted MS-DOS floppy, and CrossDOS mounted to read it on the Amiga. Once that's there, download HDInst.lha, and the lha unpacker from Aminet, unpack it, run it and partition the drive. If it's bigger than 4GB, don't use anything past 4GB until you sort out the drivers/filesystems so they support it...

Edit: I see you have an A4000... Is that connected to the internet? If so, that'll make things *much* easier!

[pVC]

I assume the HD is blank or from an old PC as was told would have to format it before use.

Then you have to partition it first (hdtoolbox, hdinsttool) and after creating the partitions format the each partition (format command or format from workbench menus). Just like on any other system.

[Khephren]

@Swos lover does your A4000 not have a harddrive or disks? If it does, look for "hdtoolbox" on that, or "cross dos".

If you don't have the disks, your a bit buggered, as crossdos is your means of getting data form Aminet via PC floppy.

[swoslover]

Sorry should modify my sig.

Unfortunately had to sell the A1200 as it was taking up my dining table and we have a small flat so nowhere obvious to put it